I'm glad to see other Werewolf players speaking up about the upcoming update! Here's what I think about each of your points:

1. Agreed. I hope the tanking is tied to Pack Leader instead of Deafening Roar, since Pack Leader is the tankier morph. Or, it could be tied to Feral Pounce, as Brutal Pounce is widely preferred by damage dealers. I hope the zero cost for taunting (you only need to Medium/Heavy Attack to taunt) persists in the rework.
2. Agreed. I actually hope that we get our cosmetic customization in the same menu as the human form cosmetics, rather than through the Skill Styling system. This would allow us to mix/match fur and eye colors, add markings like scars and war paint, wear tattered clothing (with a human form counterpart), and swap our model to alternatives like the undead and skeletal werewolf models. I assume the model we transform into is determined by our character's gender, but if not, that could be selected in such a menu as well.
3. Agreed. One of the new concept art pieces shows the new werewolf designs standing on two legs, so I assume many of the old animations will be reused.
4. Agreed. I don't think the howling will be removed, as that's an iconic part of Werewolf's toolkit.
5. Partially agreed. I think the werewolves could be scaled slightly bigger. I noticed in the concept art comparing the male and female Werewolf models that the female model was slightly smaller. So, I think the female model could remain the size of the current model, while the male model is scaled up slightly. I wouldn't mind the Werewolf model getting bigger, but not too much bigger.
6. Agreed. I miss those bloodstains when devouring corpses. The werewolf NPCs in the Hircine's Gift quest still get those bloodstains, so I hope ZOS is planning on giving that detail to the new model as well. This was one of the features that made me appreciate ESO's Werewolf over Skyrim's Werewolf.
7. Agreed. This ties into my argument for point #2 — if the Werewolf Transformation Skill Styles only affect the fur color, then how would that change the VFX of the in-form Ultimate? That's another reason the Werewolf form cosmetics should be implemented in a separate menu. I want an in-form Ultimate with corresponding Skill Styles to change how it looks. Ideally this Ultimate has some special function when cast above X Ultimate, or reverts your form otherwise. This would allow you to build and spend Ultimate, or manually change back like you could before.

Like you, I only started playing this game for the playable werewolves. I've been advocating for Werewolf for a long time now. I'm also here specifically for the werewolf variety of werebeast. Here are a couple of my top points, from the perspective of a PvE/PvP Werewolf damage dealer main:

1. Werewolf Grimoires for Scribing - Werewolf is currently the only playstyle in the game without access to the Scribing system. I want to see customizable skills for the Werewolf skill line that align with the power fantasy of Tamriel's werewolves, which can fill in the holes of our toolkit and allow us greater build diversity. For instance, maybe one Grimoire makes your Werewolf do a biting attack, which can be made to deal Physical/Bleed/Disease Damage, grant you the effects of your Class Mastery, afflict the enemy with a snare, or grant you Minor Resolve. Maybe another Grimoire has you invoke Hircine's blessing, allowing you to make the ground around you heal allies, grant damage shields, apply Poison Damage over time to enemies, or so on. Such Grimoires in-world could be penned by notable Werewolf characters (like Firralthel or Narazda), Reachman witches, or other interested parties.

2. The ability to crouch/sneak - This would open up new ways to play in PvP, and it would allow us to complete content in PvE which we couldn't before. For instance, the ability to hunt from stealth would allow us to play like an ambush predator, allowing ganking builds without the need for invisibility potions. Several werewolves in-game use sneaking/prowling animations already, and I think that's what the quadruped pose of the werewolf on the jubilee cake this year is meant to represent. Plus, being allowed to sneak would allow us to use sets we couldn't use before (such as the Sentry set, giving us some Stealth Detection) and it would allow us to complete content like March of Sacrifices (both the Tarcyr fight and the side indrik fights require stealth to even use the synergy on the wisp) and the Hollowjack boss fight during the Witches Festival.

3. Killmove animations triggered from Stealth - Assuming we get the ability to crouch/sneak, I want to see "assassinations" made for Werewolf, the same way the Blade of Woe or Vampire feeding work. By far my favorite part of Skyrim's Werewolf experience was being able to trigger cinematic executions on enemies, such as the one where you pounce on an enemy and rip their throat out. I want to see animations like these given to ESO's Werewolf. Further, the ability to assassinate enemies from stealth would allow Werewolves to complete Dark Brotherhood Sacraments without incurring a bounty.

4. A rework of the timer system - The transformation timer was Skyrim's solution to the gameplay design of Werewolf in Daggerfall and Morrowind, where you were forced to transform at night (only during full moons in Daggerfall) and would incur a debuff if you didn't kill someone while transformed. Skyrim allows you to transform whenever you'd like, but wants to encourage you to act like a werewolf by using the timer to essentially say you weren't actually trying to be a werewolf if you don't feed on things. ESO lets you manually revert form, which is a first for the TES series, but I think this could be taken a step further. I think the transformation should be a zero cost toggle without a timer. Instead, to encourage people to act like werewolves (attacking things, feeding on corpses, and grouping with other werewolves) those passives should instead buff you when you perform those actions. For instance, Blood Rage could give you a sharp damage increase when you deal damage, Devour could grant you damage reduction while feeding, and Call of the Pack could grant you Magicka Recovery for every transformed werewolf or dire wolf in your group.

At the very least, Vengeance Werewolf Transformation should be implemented as a toggle, since passives don't exist in Vengeance Cyrodiil. Companion Werewolf Transformation should occur when the player transforms or if the Companion falls below a Health threshold, so that they don't waste an Ultimate slot — this would allow them to play as either a human or as a werewolf, and allow them access to their transformation below Level 20. Hopefully Companion Werewolves stay transformed for as long as Player Werewolves are transformed. If players must keep the timer, then I hope crouching/sneaking (if implemented) pauses the timer, to allow them to focus on stealth-related tasks (such as Heists or Sacraments) as well as allow them to socialize with other players outside of specific zones that grant them an infinite timer.

5. Pounce/Carnage switching depending on target distance - There's nothing more annoying than trying to chase a high mobility enemy in PvP and being locked out of your only gap closer for a few seconds because you failed to cast Carnage on them. Similarly, casting Brutal Pounce on a PvE target when you just want to refresh your Brutal Carnage stacks is also annoying, especially when the target is "flying" and you aren't allowed to cast gap closers on them (such as those Vampire Lord enemies during Harrowstorms). A solution to both of these problems would be to make the Pounce/Carnage ability change to Pounce when the enemy is far away, or switch to Carnage when the enemy is close.

6. The ability to place Siege Weapons in Cyrodiil - Werewolves can currently use Siege, but they cannot place it. We know from a bug that a character in Werewolf form would use a crouching animation when placing Siege, so I don't know why this functionality is disabled. I want to be useful to my Alliance while in Werewolf form.

7. The Terrified effect needs to be reworked - The goal of Terrified is to get damage dealer and tank werewolves to group together (limiting Terrified to the non-tank version of Roar while giving tanks a damage boost to their Piercing Howl ability) while also getting werewolves to use all 5 of their skills (a manual cast of Ferocious Roar is required to apply this affect). However, this effect falls short in several ways. First, it's a DPS and sustain loss to actually incorporate Ferocious Roar into your parse. Second, this design is asking damage dealer werewolves to fear enemies, which places the enemies in crowd control immunity, meaning tanks with a pull cannot affect these adds. The Terrified effect also only benefits Werewolves, so it's an annoyance for the non-Werewolf players in the group. Further, Terrified can be purged in PvP, which is really easy to do. Another aspect I hardly see people talking about is how the fear from initially transforming with Werewolf Transformation no longer causes Howl of Agony to deal increased damage — you now have to "fear" the enemy twice, using Ferocious Roar immediately after transforming — to get the damage buff to your spammable.

I would vastly prefer to get a Werewolf Grimoire to be the 5th ability on my bar for damage dealing; I'll leave the roaring to the tank werewolves in my group.

8. Piercing Howl as a projectile doesn't make sense - Why is our main spammable a projectile that can be reflected back at us or get blocked by NPC ice walls? Why are we attacking with literal sound that has the same SFX as Roar? I would much prefer a biting attack to what we currently have, like Werewolf Behemoth has.

I have many other points I could talk about, but these are the top ones that come to mind that haven't already been mentioned in the original post. Thank you for making this thread! I hope ZOS stops by to take a look at it.

Pinging for visibility:
@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_Kira pinging because I mentioned Scribing
@ZOS_PhilipDraven pinging because I mentioned Companions

MaverickWerewolf wrote: »

I admit I honestly wouldn't want too much customization because then we would reach the point of looking silly, lol. I also wouldn't want to see it become a toggle, because then we would just end up being worgen from WoW instead of like werewolves with a curse, which is an element of the werewolf in this game that I really like and is unique compared to similar games. A toggle would result in everyone being wolf furries, instead of werewolves, and that is an outcome I personally really do not want.

I much prefer the simulation of actually being a werewolf, as in the older Elder Scrolls games, and I would much prefer them actually taking it more in that direction instead of even farther away from it.

Yeah, the roleplay fantasy of ESO's Werewolf is the greatest draw for me. The part I don't like about WoW's Worgen (that some people actually prefer) is how they functionally act no different from any regular human. In ESO, you get a completely different toolkit, and the roleplay fantasy is all about clawing and mauling your enemies.

I hope we don't get unnatural fur colors as customization options. I'm totally fine with the grey, brown, white, and black fur colors. I'd also be fine with more wolf-like fur patterns, such as those that resemble timber wolves or other kinds of wolves that exist in ESO. I don't think bright, unnatural fur colors would fit the aesthetic of Werewolf.

It would admittedly be a more engaging experience to have to constantly worry about your curse, the way Vampire players have to worry about their stage. One pain point in particular is how NPCs claim to be unable to stop themselves from transforming — and yet, the player has difficulty maintaining their Werewolf form. Ideally we get the ability to transform whenever we'd like, but maybe there should be a timer to automatically transform you if you haven't transformed in a while to sate your bloodlust? That would make the decision to become a Werewolf more meaningful.

Soarora wrote: »

I am curious, with all the comments of making werewolf a toggle, what the best way to go about that would be? The obvious method would be just hitting the ultimate button again, but werewolf deserves an actual ultimate. So…?

Two bars and one of the two ultimate slots is de-transform? Adding a condition to the ultimate that if it’s used out of combat you’ll de-werewolf?

I suggested having the Ultimate revert your form when cast below some X amount of Ultimate, or activate the Ultimate when cast with X or more Ultimate. Kind of like how Nightblade's "Incapacitating Strike" ability has a different effect when cast with 120 or more Ultimate.

This would mean an easy way to revert form is to first spend the Ultimate if you have X or more of it by casting the Ultimate ability once. Then cast the Ultimate again before reaching X amount of Ultimate to revert form. This Ultimate could have no target (like an AoE), or a self target (you can always target yourself) to prevent situations where there are no targets to activate the Ultimate on. But even if you can't fire the Ultimate to spend it, you can always port to a different zone, queue for Cyrodiil/IC/Battlegrounds/Dungeons, or log out and back in to leave Werewolf form, if you have no access to Timidity potions.

I personally agree with the OP fully on matters of werewolf, and I do think we should be a little mindful about derailing their thread. I don't think a toggle would be a good idea either, and I think we'd just see werewolf being made weaker because of it.

I'm excited for the changes, but I do believe ZOS needs to keep in mind what folks already like, and make sure to not take too much of it away. Giving the ability for werewolves to tank was AWESOME and I hope they double down on this. It doesn't have to be meta, just viable and fun.

I defo would like for werewolves to have a proper ult though, and PLEASE do make them bigger, make them rival necro skelly ult, whatever it's called, and the vampire ult form in size. Werewolves in Elder Scrolls are meant to be big and terrifying.

Currently I actually do trust ZOS with this, hopefully not misplaced, but I see them listening and trying to find middle ground with folks, and I appreciate it a lot.

Werewolves getting a new model is huge, I thought this would never happen.

MaverickWerewolf wrote: »

I admit I honestly wouldn't want too much customization because then we would reach the point of looking silly, lol. I also wouldn't want to see it become a toggle, because then we would just end up being worgen from WoW instead of like werewolves with a curse, which is an element of the werewolf in this game that I really like and is unique compared to similar games. A toggle would result in everyone being wolf furries, instead of werewolves, and that is an outcome I personally really do not want.

I much prefer the simulation of actually being a werewolf, as in the older Elder Scrolls games, and I would much prefer them actually taking it more in that direction instead of even farther away from it.

I agree for sure with being able to sneak and things, though; it's genuinely crazy that werewolves can't do that.

I do fear too many extensive changes, like too heavily altering the transformation system, because I ultimately like the system pretty well right now, despite some of its gameplay flaws (mostly in werewolves being a bit power-crept and things like that).

How would that be different from Khajiit exactly? we even have Alfiq in game.

being restricted to "night" transformations is no way for reliable gameplay in an MMO. simply because you can't control it. "Hey i can't go to the trial tonight team, im going to be stuck in werewolf mode for the next two hours" .... its not really feasable.

my one complaint with Werewolf as it stands is that it relies on active combat to maintain, and you dont gain ultmate while transformed. which means there is constant pressure to push on. this is great when you can do that. but if your in a group that needs breaks to explain mechs or other actions... its so frustrating.

Hey guys ty for the thoughtful discussion and advocacy.

In my coordinating of a large werewolf group the most common pain points I hear include:

- there are limited ways to cross heal and provide other group utility
- No reason on earth werewolves shouldn’t be able to sneak. (By the way, we have like, wolf senses. We should be able to detect stealth.)
- People would like to have cosmetic fur color changes (agree w Erickson only natural colors not anything too zany)
- Certain sets do not work right in werewolf for example monomyth

Secondary complaints:
- nobody should be able to outrun a werewolf
- We need a dynamic ulti ability (like what folks are describing above

Some of my comments:
- Agree about comments on model regarding remaining bipedal part of the time. I’m not sure we need to be MUCH bigger

I’m excited for the werewolf changes and trust the ZOS team to give this all the thought it deserves! Us werewolf players appreciate you prioritizing this.